Frustration

Feeling blocked, stuck, angry? Getting caught in road rage or snarling secretly at your partner? According to metaphysical principals, if you're not attached to the past in some way then everything will flow for you. Like, life's a current we can just go with, unless we're clinging to rocks in some way. Obviously this belief was made up by some super mutable type without any history, possessions or family. Certainly he/she didn't live on the Mars/Saturn cycle, that is, didn't have any aspects on this cycle, especially a hard one. How's your blood pressure & muscle tone? Are you seizing up, especially in the shoulders & back? Arthritic aches in your finger joints? Love to relax by having a good orgasm yet can't bear to be touched? Tension driving you crazy, yawning tired yet can't even sleep properly & keep getting up to go to the loo? And when you sleep, does your bed sharer tell you later that you were snoring & grinding your teeth in your sleep. These sorts of conditions is probably quite acute, right now, in anyone who has an Aries/Capricorn or Mars/Saturn conflict prominent in their natal chart. So what's going on in the sky to trigger these conditions? It's simply that we earthlings are experiencing a long term Mars opposition Saturn. If we allow an 8 degree orb for this opposition then it is in effect from Dec 17, 96 until Mar 10, 97; & then again from Jul 15, 97 until Aug 12, 97. That's because rotten little Mars has to go retrograde from Feb 6, 97 until April 27, 97. Summing all this up & adding up the days, we have Mars opposition Saturn 47.6% of the time from mid December 96 until mid August 97. So you'd better get used to it or at least learn to live with it. The greatest tension will of course occur when the opposition is applying & comes to exactness on Jan 9, 97; Rx Feb 16, 97; & Jul 29, 97. Probably what increases the tension is that this opposition also falls on the nodal axis for some of this period. So you're feeling that everything you want is being blocked & denied to you. Welcome to the Mars/Saturn club. I have a special going on bumper stickers labeled, "Get out of the F---ing Way". The F--- word is not there just for drama, but to illustrate a major issue in this scenario. While the Planets do not have to compel; & they probably do for those living ordinary unconscious lives, this opposition will surely stir up old memories of wants & desires denied. So let's have a look at the core psychodynamics of the Mars/Saturn cycle. These will certainly be major issues in the lives of children being born at this time. In times of rapid social change, like now, Saturnian control structures become rapidly outmoded. Then they show up mainly as authoritarian parental commands of "don't!" Being born on this cycle means that you have a leaning to hear/see, "Thou shall not be angry, desirous or naturally sexual." The resultant blockage of the Martian energy results in enormous tension which is the root of a whole range of medical conditions. Most extreme is chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which can be totally debilitating. Other symptoms have been mentioned above & repetitive strain injury (RSI) should also be included. Mars is said to rule the muscles & Saturn the bones. If we have subconscious programs that say No! to our wants, when we reach out for what we desire, that action invokes a mental command contracting an opposing sets of muscles. Try it yourself & see. Reach out for a cup or pen & at the same time hold your hand back. It's what Oken ["Complete Astrology" 1988] called "driving a car with the brakes on". Much tension, overheating & after a few decades of this unconscious behaviour, you get diagnosed as having rheumatism or arthritis. In Freudian lingo, this is a classic ID versus SUPEREGO conflict. If there are other supporting factors in your psychology, such as a Pluto emphasis, then the tension can be extreme enough to eventually create RSI or CFS. The good news is that if you know what is going on & are prepared to do something about it, these conditions can be abolished or never appear. Before discussing treatment, let's look at sexual inhibitions. Puritans are brittle uptight control freaks, as exemplified by the American WASP religious Right. Classic Mars/Saturn signature. Coming back to the bumper stickers I jokingly offered earlier, if you live on the Mars/Saturn cycle then as a little kid you were all ears for jokes, comments & subtle vibes condemning sexual expression. Did you ever see that excellent Australian film - "The Devils Playground?" Fascinating story set in a Catholic boys school in the 1950's, exploring the theme of Sex = Sin. While Freuds early work has been nutshelled as an exposition on the neurosis that arises when sexuality is repressed, it was Wilhelm Reich, one of his followers, who took this theme to the extreme. Incidentally, both Freud & Reich have Mars/Saturn hard aspects in their birthcharts. Not surprising! Reich was eccentric, authority phobic & quite brilliant. In typical Sun Aries fashion, he believed that if people could have great & fulfilling orgasms, then fanaticism & Fascism would disappear from human behaviour & politics. It was his antiauthoritarian political stances that got him hounded him out of Germany & Norway & eventually got him imprisoned in the USA where he died. Treatment: Anger release, massage, masturbation & supportive homeopathics. During most of the period when Mars opposed Saturn, transiting Pluto is trining Saturn & sextiling Mars. With this easy opposition, Pluto shows the way around the conflict. The message is that some holistic psychotherapy, such as Breathwork/Rebirthing, is the appropriate modality for releasing the anger & reconfiguring the old memories.